An embedded journalist for neuroscience

I’ve just discovered a new blog called The Brain Detectives by the writer-in-residence at the Montreal Neurological Institute, who has the wonderful job of hanging around and writing-up the most interesting things she hears.

Although the writer, journalist Maria Schamis Turner, has just started, the project looks very promising.

I honestly think that more research institutes should have embedded journalists. Science writing would be greatly improved if the hacks had access to the scientific literature, while the lab rats would get an eloquent interface to the outside world.

If you want a feel for the dispatches coming from the Montreal Neurological Institute, the recent post on homicidal somnambulism (murder while sleepwalking) is great.